Sensex, Nifty trade positive; Auto stocks in focus

Indian markets kicked off Monday's trading session on positive note with Sensex opening higher by nearly 180 points amid good performance of global peers. 

At 0950 hours, Sensex was trading at 31,842.27 up 155 points or 0.49%, while Nifty 50 surged by over 48 points or 0.48% trading at 9,982.80. 

Gainers on BSE involved Dr Reddy's Laboratories taking lead by trading at Rs 2189.30 per piece up 1.41%, followed by Larsen & Toubro at Rs 1185.45 per piece (1.12%), Mahindra & Mahindra at Rs 1308 per piece (1.03%), Adani Ports at Rs 388.80 per piece (1%) and HDFC Bank at Rs 1804.65 per piece (0.93%). 

Auto stocks gained on stock exchanges as the increased GST cess on mid- sized, luxury and SUV cars will come into effect from Monday (September 11, 2017). 

Motilal Oswal said, ''Autostocks could see gains as cess increase is not to the highest level as was earlier feared."

The GST Council on September 9 decided to hike cess on mid-sized cars by 2%, taking the effective GST rate to 45%. Also, cess on large cars has been hiked by 5%, taking the total GST incidence to 48% while that of SUVs by 7% to 50%.

S&P BSE Auto was trading at 24228.21 above 145 points or 0.60%. Apart from M&M other passenger vehicles company like Maruti Suzuki (Rs 8038 per piece) and Tata Motors (Rs 377.40 per piece) also rose by 0.82% and 0.63% respectively. 

Losers on BSE involved Kotak Mahindra Bank (Rs 1005 per piece), ICICI Bank (Rs 291.80 per piece), Power Grid (Rs 213 per piece), ONGC (Rs 161.80 per piece) and TCS (Rs 2468.55 per piece) trading negative in the range of 0.00% - 0.30%. 

"Indian markets are set to open higher. Sectors like private banks, financials and auto could remain in focus. Pharma space which saw declines on back of draft guidelines could also see recovery," added Motilal. 

Meantime Indian rupee was trading at 63.855 down by 0.090 paisa or 0.13% against US benchmark dollar. 

Asian stocks rose and the dollar rebounded from its lowest in more than two years as hurricane Irma’s force waned and the United Nations prepared to vote on tougher North Korean sanctions, reported in Bloomberg. 

Japan's Nikkei 225 was trading at 19,561.47 up 286.65 points or 1.49%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng higher by 258.32 points or 0.93% trading at 27,926.79 and China's Shanghai SE Composite Index trading at 3,369.56 above 4.32 points or 0.13%. 

"North Korea will remain in focus. UN meet and its decisions will be keenly watched." lastly said Motilal.